Mission ideas

[-SWAF-Lunatic 0]

While i realise that OPFP was not that linear, it still had a linear path, ie, you had to go to a then b before c to do d in c.

What id like to see is you have to get to b to do d, it is up to you how you do it, you can do it by going to a,c or x, in y,z,or j.

So you have your mission starting point, and a briefing, but you do the mission your way, lets say a set of options such as, you can either go to the tankpark and take an armoured unit, you can go to the airfield in a truck and get a c130 and parachute in at a point of your chosing etc.

This would open the game up that little bit more.

[MP Studio 0]

That wouldn't be realistic

A soldier cant do what he wants...

[Franz_Schall -SWAF- 0]

Yes, dude - making the gameplay a bit more dynamic would be increasing your freedom of doing whatever you want to achieve your main goal.

But on the other hand it might confuse some people who simply don't know what to do and how to do next things..

Personally, I'd like to see a full dynamical campaign as well, where every loss and every killed enemies affect your army's strength, ressources and planning etc. (maybe not achieveable until OFP3 is coming )

I can't wait any longer to get more information about it ....

[Skul 0]

That's basically already happened in Resistance, don't you think?

[WhoCares 0]

It is only limited in Resistance. Your deeds have no influence on the general progress of the war. You are doomed to win the war or lose at some predefined branches.

A fully dynamic campaign on the other hand could last forever. It would work more like one side starts attacking. If they achieve the objective they will push the frontline forward. When they lose, they will launch another attack, maybe on an other location. When they continue to lose, the sides might change and the defender starts to attack...

An alternative might be the solution of Il2:FB, if I understand the concept correct (I don't have it). (For obvious reasons) You are not able to change the end of WW2, but your success in one mission has a direct influence of the progress in your front sector and by this on your future missions.

[Franz_Schall -SWAF- 0]

Yep, WhoCares - IL-2:FB might be one example for an approach for my thoughts. I'd favour a fully dynamical campaign, but it might be hard to design at the moment (too many unforseen possibilities, in-game cutscenes etc.).

[hellfish6 7]

A dynamic campaign where missions would be generated on the fly (like at any given time, there could be, for instance, three infantry missions, two tank missions, two helo missions, and a specops mission that you can take personal control of) would be great. Kind of like how Apache vs. Havoc or Commanche vs. Hokum's dynamic campaign worked.

Cutscenes are nice, but secondary to a good campaign, IMHO.

[KimTuomi 0]

Hmmm, the subject of this thread did not quite sound what I had in mind, so I posted another thread after you.... Your writings in here are very similar afterall what I wrote in my post.

I'm with you guys; dynamic campaign, no separate "missions", only changing objectives.

[Guest]

A campaign designed by a human beats a dynamically computer generated campaign any time. I say leave the mission types exactly as they were.

[Jinef 2]

I would say, that there are lot's of human made missions, but you don't alays do them, for example if you are on guard duty, and you go off and have a fag, so some civvie with a bomb can blow up your platoon's APC, then you should get demoted and get given shit duty to do, like checkpoint duty.

We should have real soldier life coming through, not, okay we're on Everon, let's take morton then montignac then the area is secure, oh no it isn't the Ruskies just camcreated a hind. Let's spend more time on islands, so you get to know them, and make friends with civvies while doing checkpoint duty. Let's also have an island where the resistance is working against you, you have to do patrols through sniper towns and bascially live the life of a UN soldier in Kosovo or a British soldier in Northern Ireland, where you are despised, but are trying to help.

[SpeedyDonkey 0]

There is two different ways they could make it really good.

1, As in Mafia very good plot and a great atmosphere (with lots of very good cutscene) or 2, a dynamic one where you can do what you want, when you want and how you want, witch would be a bit more like Gta3. I would prefear the mafia one

(with mafia and gta3 i dont mean the games´s only the campaign structure)

[KimTuomi 0]

denoir, if we have a game with some kind of intelligence to "fix" the campaign back to the actual tracks storywise, it would work. BI people does the story and the game content itself but this subsystem could create true freedom for things. I find it kind of "wrong" that you are able to drop down the helicopter that is harassing you but in the start of the next mission it is again flying overhead.

[whisperFFW06 0]

Hmmmm... I think this would throw away the variety of situations and ennemy reactions you can have with scripted campaign, as in a dynamic system, every single situation has to be pre-rendered, and reaction is automatized.

No more scout-patrol mission, global island evac with player left alone (remember After Montignac), alliance and "diplomacy" with local resistance, etc... It's a big frontline system, with pre-scripted type of missions, all the same.

The big missing point is storyline. You don't have anymore. The "RPG" part of the game disappear... Sad...

Dynamic campaigns are ok for example in fly simulations, because, out of your plane, you are not really IN, you are in a global screen showing you the overall situation, or you jump directly in the next mission, in your cockpit. The only important point in these game is flying your aircraft, not your direct everyday life environnement.

This is not true in Flashpoint, your are IN, many things happen to YOU, not your plane. Need food, making stupid jokes, boring patrols, building your forward camp, rescuing comrades, making alliances, etc... And I don't want to see 2 Spec Ops mission with the same briefing with only 4 words changed, same cutscene in another place, etc....

Whis'

[hovmand 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Jinef @ April 25 2003,12:07)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">We should have real soldier life coming through, not, okay we're on Everon, let's take morton then montignac then the area is secure, oh no it isn't the Ruskies just camcreated a hind. Let's spend more time on islands, so you get to know them, and make friends with civvies while doing checkpoint duty. Let's also have an island where the resistance is working against you, you have to do patrols through sniper towns and bascially live the life of a UN soldier in Kosovo or a British soldier in Northern Ireland, where you are despised, but are trying to help.<span id='postcolor'>

That would be cool, but i doubt that the casual gamer would find it very interesting

[Franz_Schall -SWAF- 0]

Whisper, SpeedyDonkey - that's the point where the difficulties begin...

I would like to see a game wich includes a deep dramatic athmosphere, as well as a dynamic campaign, where the outcome of one mission has an effect to all the following missions.

I'd like to see the freedom of completing missions as it is now.

But that isn't really related to a dynamical campaign, I think.

In GTA3, as far as I remember, the missions in GTA3 are connected to each other, too. What you have got there is that you can go around and (when not having an appointment) doing whatever you want. Besides that, the missions are connected among themselves just not that restricted as you find in massively scripted games (where you come from one mission straight into the next one).

Personally, I prefer the indeepth, emotion awaking style which made Flashpoint to the game it's loved for - the feeling of being an individual in a big conflict, whichever the final solution might be..

[SpeedyDonkey 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">In GTA3, as far as I remember, the missions in GTA3 are connected to each other, too. What you have got there is that you can go around and (when not having an appointment) doing whatever you want. Besides that, the missions are connected among themselves just not that restricted as you find in massively scripted games (where you come from one mission straight into the next one).<span id='postcolor'>

Yes but if you make it "Gta3 style" good cutscene would be very hard to make in a accurate way. Maybe some kind of a compromise could be done, a few obvious things like If you shoot a chopper in mission 1 it will be gone in mission 2. And inside a mission you could choose if you want to attack town 1 or 2 first, but as fast as it gets "too" dynamic it will be hard to tie the missions together story wise and maintain the nice cutscene, witch i love {8^)

[Franz_Schall -SWAF- 0]

Yeah SpeedyDonkey - that's exactly what I thought at.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Yes but if you make it "Gta3 style" good cutscene would be very hard to make in a accurate way. Maybe some kind of a compromise could be done, a few obvious things like If you shoot a chopper in mission 1 it will be gone in mission 2. And inside a mission you could choose if you want to attack town 1 or 2 first, but as fast as it gets "too" dynamic it will be hard to tie the missions together story wise and maintain the nice cutscene, witch i love<span id='postcolor'>

[Jinef 2]

How about both?

Have a scripted campaign and a dynamic generator. They have another year and a half do if they start making missions now and just convert them over they could do it, for us, please!

[Harnu 0]

SAD (Search and Destroy) where we aren't suppsoed to be. Such as going into Laos and Cambodia to combat enemy movements.

[hellfish6 7]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @ April 25 2003,03:13)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">A campaign designed by a human beats a dynamically computer generated campaign any time. I say leave the mission types exactly as they were.<span id='postcolor'>

My idea of a dynamic campaign is a bit different. Instead of the way OFP missions work now, where either you win or you lose and try again, in a dynamic campaign you win, you "kinda win" you fail or you get killed.

You can accomplish your mission, like taking out a tank platoon with an Apache, and the enemy now has one less tank platoon. Not like in OFP campaigns now, where it doesn't matter how many kills you get or how many supplies you destroy - because it doesn't matter.

I suppose what I'm talking about is not a campaign per se, but rather an integrated battlefield environment with finite resources that plays continuously. Missions are generated and the player gets to pick which one he wants to lead. The player leads his unit out on the mission and maybe he stumbles across an enemy supply cache. If he blows up that cache, the enemy has X amout of supplies than he did before. If he doesn't blow up that cache and continues with his original mission, then the enemy retains those supplies. And it will affect the campaign later, when those T-80s are running low on ammo - if you had blown those supplies, maybe those T-80s wouldn't be able to fight back not. Or if you did blow those supplies, maybe that T-80 has only one more main gun round left.

[ThruYerStErNuM 0]

A fully dynamic campaign is entirely possible in opf1 not just in ofp2 or 3. I think, if the developers have any sense in them, they are working on a full dynamic system, since the engine is made so well for large scale operations with many things happening at once. I have been working on a fully dynamic campaign for about 8 months now, and I'm nearing a first release, and this is the first time I couldn't resist saying "oh yes you can" in a post to someone requesting this type of gameplay. What I have now is a system of giving the player full control over the entire army, with an automatically randomly generated opposing force, behaving in a seemingly realistic way without ever growing in number so much it bogs down the system too much. It's just one singe mission that plays out over many hours like a complete campaign. It feels just a little like GTA3, and in the future I may add on missions you can pick, like take out a certain target behind enemy lines for bonus points (used to request reinforcements/fire support). I really can't wait to see this in a newer OFP game with better graphics and high production values, and I am positive if BIS doesn't do it in OFP2, we, the community, will. Also, it is a great idea to have a constant gain in rank on the battlefield, so you can gain more and more control over the forces around you. You would need a good artificial intellingence in your commander to pick how the campaign will advance though. My system requires player intelligence. Random dynamic adjustment is the future of games in my mind, because it only takes just as much work to set up a formula for what should happen if something in particular does happen, as it is to actually decide what should happen after what will happen, as developers/mission makers do in a linear plot system. It just requires great processing power, only recently available, to calculate the behind your back stuff rather than just the on screen goodies most newer games focus so much on.

[Jinef 2]

Sounds very impressive. I would like to see Apache VS Havoc style pick the mission your rank allows, start off with patrols then progress to raids on enemy bases etc.

[Franz_Schall -SWAF- 0]

Wow, ThruYerStErNuM. I have never heard that it's possible in the current OFP version. I've ever thought this amount of units involved would peak out every CPU which is on the market and make it in consequence not playable.

Heads up for your hard work - I'll d/l and test it when it comes out.

[CuteQA 0]

I really like the OFP's campaign style, we can play the story from a soldier to a pilot. I hope we are going to see a more detail, longer more better story in ofp2!

The only thing i feel bad about ofp1 campagin is the later part.  There are less cutscenes ,and the characters is not talktive like the begining. It really gives a different feel while David Amstrong always talking to his Squad mates or active with Commander Slava. ( maybe poor David has no one to talk bcuz they all died later  )

I hope there will be more cutscenes, activties, and more strenthen relationships between characters in ofp2 ( RES did it pretty well, but it can be better )

                 

[//relic// 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @ 25 April 2003,20:13)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">A campaign designed by a human beats a dynamically computer generated campaign any time. I say leave the mission types exactly as they were.<span id='postcolor'>

You haven't played Falcon4 I take it?

I'd like to ultimately see a dynamic campaign plus a story based campaign, although that's unrealistic. It would be nice however, to have kills in one mission impact on the overall force levels on any given island.

The example that springs to mind is highjacking a russian helo in "Saboteur" (IIRC) in the CWC campaign and killing every russian you can find using it. Having this impact on the overall level of enemy forces on the island would be good.